Tag Archives: autodesk inventor

I’ve spent perhaps 150 hours working on this in CAD and less than 30 in the studio prototyping. Once all the patterns are printed and stuck to the double thick cereal boxes I think my students will have a shot at building their own in 12 hours of class time.

I finally have a complete design. There has been a lot of back and fourth between CAD and studio: design an element, build a prototype, redesign, tinker, second prototype, sketch, think about it for a while, third prototype. So even though I have yet to build a complete clock I do have some confidence that it will work.

But first a vacation back to the Fatherland to celebrate my Dad’s 70th Birthday!

The “Sink Grinder” shown bolted to the wall above the sink. Rendered with Autodesk Inventor

Last December I realized that I need to up my game.

I have always been unsatisfied with the final finish of the etching process I use. I’ve spent hours and hours at the sink with various wet abrasives and despite how long I scrubbed I was never quite satisfied with the results. Furthermore, I have a long term goal to incorporate more champlevé into my work. I’ve ground enough glass (very little) to know that power assist for that task would be the bees knees.

So I stared looking around for a powered grinder of some sort that was versatile and large enough for me needs and finally happened upon the Single Arbor Grinder (SAG-1) made by Denver Glass Machinery pictured below. It would be the perfect solution if I had a much larger workspace and a few grand of extra dollars.

The Single Arbor Grinder made by Denver Glass Machinery sells for $2300.

Then, I found this image showing the guts of the SAG-1 at the WarmGlass.com forum. A motor, two pillow blocks and a shaft? Is that all? I can build that.

I’m calling my design a Sink Grinder because there is where it will reside. The frame and motor will both be attached to the wall and easily removable. I’ve drawn three versions of this machine in Inventor so I think I’m ready to build the first prototype. Hopefully this one works so well that I don’t need to build a second.

Th last of the parts are on order, the shaft has been machined, and the frame is fabricated. All that’s left is assembly, and paint. Then the grinding can begin.

This summer, in an effort to teach myself Autodesk Inventor 2012 I decided to construct a virtual Geneva wheel. I have made actual Geneva wheels in the past using a pre-existing templates but I had no idea how to lay out this mechanism from scratch. Continue reading →